Posts Tagged With: Oatmeal

My blogging was disrupted a month ago when I left for a 2+ week trip to India for work. Every time I travel for that length of period, it takes me almost just as long to catch up on life again when I get back.

Before I try to get back on a more regular blogging schedule, I’ll share a few shots of some of our meals from the last few weeks.

As a side to that meal, we ate Happy Herbivore’s carrot fries. Again, super easy and healthy. I got this recipe when I purchased one of her $5 meal plans, which I highly recommend for quick, easy, healthy meals. It comes with a shopping list, which is so convenient. I prefer the family plan because recipes are four servings, and instead of making all the lunches, we make the full dinners and eat the leftovers for lunch.

The tofu scramble is our own creation that we throw together in a saute: tofu, green onion, pepper, other vegetables on hand, a bit of oil, nutritional yeast, turmeric, cumin, hot sauce, salt, pepper, occasionally tomatoes, etc.

And finally, as a result of cleaning out the fridge/pantry (and my husband’s creativity): a cold salad mix of orzo, red quinoa, chickpeas, kale, red pepper, dried cranberries, red onion and a sauce of probably olive oil, vinegar, lemon mix (but honestly I don’t remember, he just threw it together and this was weeks ago).

Coming up (if I can stick with this blogging thing…): spring and summer meals using fresh fruits and vegetables. This is favorite time of year to cook!

For years I struggled with finding a breakfast that would fill me up until lunchtime. Matt introduced me to oatmeal, and I’ve never turned back. We typically use either a multi-grain mix of rye, barley, oats and wheat or just oats. We almost always use the “rolled oats” because they only take about about 5-10 minutes to cook on the stovetop. With the exception of when we travel, we also always use the kind that are just plain oats or grains and don’t include any added sugars, flavoring, etc… because we make our own.

The typical staples in our oatmeal are:

banana

walnuts (rich source of omega-3s)

raisins

dried cranberries, blueberries or other dried fruit (from Trader Joe’s, the cheapest source I know of for dried nuts and berries)

flax seed (rich source of omega-3s and high in fiber)

You can cook the oatmeal in the microwave but we do it on the stovetop. While it is simmering, we get ready for work.

Once the oatmeal is finished we add a little bit of non-dairy milk and eat!

A few notes:

We used to always add some maple or agave syrup to sweeten it, but our need to taste sugar has reduced over time so that’s no longer necessary. If I remember to, I simmer the raisins with the oatmeal so that the oatmeal soak up some of the sugars from the raisins.

This can get boring over time so we try different variations. My current favorite is peanut butter oatmeal. Another favorite is adding chopped apples and cinnamon. We also sometimes do Happy Herbivore’s chai oatmeal and pumpkin oatmeal (using canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice)

It may seem like this takes a long time but it really doesn’t if you plan ahead. And, the feeling of fullness all morning is worth it.